Even $100K earners are getting priced out of Ontario's housing market

Although making six figures used to be an indicator of financial security, even an annual $100,000 salary isn't enough now to buy the average home in Toronto and other major Canadian cities, according to a new report. 

Real estate agency Zoocasa found that six-figure earners can only afford the average home in four cities out of 18 major markets in Canada, and spoiler alert — none of them are in Ontario. 

The agency used the CIBC Mortgage Affordability Calculator for a standardized stress test and set the gross income at $100,000 to collect its data, along with a standard 25-year amortization and a 3.89 per cent interest rate. 

Zoocasa

"Importantly, this report avoids the unrealistic idea of a 20 per cent down payment with no debt. Instead, it uses the average annual salary in each province from Statistics Canada as the down payment amount," the report notes. 

"This amount reflects what buyers might save on their own, plus help from family, a growing reality in Canada. As reported by CIBC, receiving help from family has become the norm for Canadian homebuyers, with the national average parental gift reaching $167,000. In the country's most expensive markets, this figure climbs to $189,000 in Ontario."

With $100,000 earned annually, dreams of home ownership are most attainable in the Prairie and Atlantic provinces, with Regina emerging as the most affordable market in Canada, with an average home price of $329,300. 

However, in the GTA, a single earner faces a deficit of $553,182 against the region's average home price of $951,700. 

Zoocasa

As the report notes, prospective buyers who can't afford detached homes often turn to condos as a more accessible entry point, and luckily, there are still several markets within reach for those who earn $100,000 per year. 

London St. Thomas and Kitchener-Waterloo are where you'll find the province's most affordable markets for condo apartments, where the average condo apartment runs for $324,000 and $366,784, respectively. In Ottawa, an average condo price of $401,465 means homeownership dreams are still very much in reach, with a deficit of just $2,947 for the average $100,000 earner. 

However, in the GTA, the average condo price is $663,227, meaning the average $100,000 earner with a maximum budget of $398,518 will still fall into a deficit of $264,709.